The Afterlife of Emerson Tang

by Paula Champa

  Except.

  Dr. Forza stepped up to the table.

  Then all that beauty was gone, and I was caught between two metal rails, drowning in a transparent plastic tent filled with oxygen. My lungs burned for air, but the body’s reflex was harsh, ratcheting itself up from the hospital bed to draw it into my chest. It was this part that I had not described to Emerson or Hélène Moreau. It was this part I did not enjoy revisiting.

  I swam up from the depths to swallow a burning gulp of oxygen like seawater, face to my knees, disoriented by a searing bolt of pain, then crashed back down.

  That was my first new breath. Each breath was like that: Stunned, confused, I ratcheted up, drowned, burned. For eight, then twelve, then fifteen hours . . .

  It went on for three days, a battle between air and water in my lungs that sent me in and out of consciousness as bruises began to spread on the back of my arms and my abdomen continued to contract, wrenching me up and down in the bed like a wind-up toy in obedience to the body’s command to breathe at any cost.

  Life was not simple for me after Dr. Forza’s moment. There was a cord for birth and one for death, but mine was not cut. In that plastic tent of torture, my death cord was unfurled, stretched, considered, but I remained attached to both sides. Dangling. Dead, then undead. In the doorway, bouncing back and forth from one side to the other. It was not a method of dying I would choose for myself again. I only know that what I experienced when I crossed the threshold was sublime.

  9

  Accession Number: BC 1996.3

  The object is one of several photocopied pages, folded and stored inside the front cover of Emerson’s notebook (ref. BC 1996.1).

  ENG-300 Final Exam

  Prof. Randall J. P. Miller

  May 4, 1983

  Compose a 1,000-word essay comparing the following two texts:

  1) From The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa (b. Portugal, 1888–1935), translated from the Portuguese:

  Anyone who lives as I do does not die: he just finishes, wilts, devegetates. The place where I stood remains without his being there, the street he walked along remains without his being seen there, the house he lived in is inhabited by a not-him. . . . let’s call it nothingness. . . .

  2) From June 30th, June 30th by Richard Brautigan (b. United States, 1935–1984):

  Unrequited Love

  . . .

  “Everything’s ending,” Emerson announced.

  He was sitting cross-legged on his bed, shredding pages from his notebook. He withdrew a printed sheet that had been stored inside the front cover—an assignment to analyze two pieces of text—and handed it to me.

  “Read it, please.”

  He cocked his head and listened with evident satisfaction while I recited the morbid passages. Then, instead of ripping it up, he tucked it back into the notebook and moved on to shredding a piece of fabric—what looked to have once been a pair of boxer shorts.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know.” He tore the patterned fabric into strips and added them to the snowy pile on his blanket. “Here’s my problem, Beth, with your ideas about an afterlife and surviving death, all these meta-narratives of liberation: Why is this happening to me?”

  “It sounds like you’re judging it as bad. If you don’t label things as good or bad, then they just are.”

  I felt like a hypocrite even as I said it to his emaciated face, but somehow I believed it.

  “I see.”

  He tore the fabric apart with quick snaps of his wrists, the way my father ripped model airplane parts from their frames.

  “That’s easy for you to say,” he went on, his voice full of undisguised cattiness. “Your death was temporary.”

  “It had some lasting effects.”

  I watched him shredding the fabric. “Whose boxer shorts are those? They look like they’ve seen better days.”

  “No one’s. Anymore.” He ran his fingers through the shreds, then idly tossed a handful up over the bed. “Can you get rid of all this, please?”

  I was carrying off the offending scraps when he asked, “What do you mean, ‘It had some lasting effects’?”

  I was unsure whether I should go further and tell him the feelings I had entrusted to Hélène Moreau. In the end she had accepted their validity. Now that I was sober, I wanted to speak with her again, to better work out my position on things. But there was no way to anticipate how Emerson might react.

  “It’s probably not going to make sense,” I began tentatively.

  “Try me.”

  “The thing is, I’m here. Except I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be here.”

  “You’re lucky to be alive!”

  What was the point of trying to make him understand? How could he know how strange it was, when he had always been so sure of himself?

  “Like I said, it’s hard to explain.”

  My attempt to backpedal came too late. His reaction was as hostile as a slap.

  “I want to do so many things,” he wailed, “and I can’t, because . . . You see me here”—he gestured to the bed, the portable urinal—“And you, you can do everything, and you—”

  I hung my head.

  “You’re a freak!” he yelled.

  “I know.”

  I had to choose my words carefully. He was a very sick man, struggling with an unknown that was at least partially known to me. I couldn’t expect him to relate. At the same time, I had no way to justify myself to him. To end the discussion, I brought up one aspect of the situation that I hoped he could sympathize with.

  “There’s something you’re not considering.”

  He scowled at me. “What?”

  “I have to go through the dying part again.”

  His tone was much gentler when he asked, “Was it painful?”

  “I’m not going to get into that.”

  “So it was.” He seemed to regard me with more respect.

  “I didn’t say that,” I protested. “I’m not getting into that with you. Everything isn’t a contest, Emerson. Those were different circumstances. Your doctor is trying to help you make choices so you don’t have to think about that.”

  I paused, wary of upsetting him, but he was nodding at me encouragingly.

  I went on: “What I’m saying is, no one wants to die—people will do anything they can to avoid it. So, can you see how I don’t feel lucky to have to do it twice?”

  “I wouldn’t do this again.”

  “Well—I will. I have no choice.”

  “I see.”

  The reality of the situation seemed to carry some weight with him. I was about to change the subject when he huffed, “But your alternative is being dead!”

  “Yes, except I keep trying to tell you—dying is the challenge, not being dead. I didn’t have a problem with where I was. That doctor did.”

  “But a doctor has a sacred duty—”

  “To first do no harm. That might not mean resuscitating. That’s why that nurse came to talk to you the other day. You saw the truth of this yourself, and you decided the same thing.”

  He gazed blankly at the DNR taped to his bedroom wall. “But you’re here now.”

  “In a way.”

  “What about your policy about not judging things as good or bad?”

  “Yes, so by my own policy, I just am.”

  He shrugged and looked at me unhappily. I sensed he was still angry when he said, “You know, Beth, some people suck at saying goodbye. I’m probably going to be one of them.”

  I found Hélène Moreau cleaning paintbrushes at her desk in Penthouse B—one paintbrush short, I was well aware, courtesy of Emerson’s theft. The pettiness of his crime made me feel all the more awkward watching her. I suspected she’d invited me there again because she continued to see me as a facilitator in her campaign for the Beacon, but her attention steadied me, whatever the motive. I’d never felt comfortable talking about my death, and our last conversation had been like smelling s
alts—beneficial, if somewhat unpleasant. She also struck me as earnest, however superficial her quest seemed, and while Emerson may have had the right to refuse her his property, he had stolen something from her.

  She gripped a bunch of the newly cleaned brushes in her fist and ran them over a newspaper to blot them, leaving traces of dark, winding lines like tire tracks on a pavement. “How is Mr. Tang?”

  I shook my head, mesmerized by the patterns on the newsprint. “His meds are jacked so high that he’s been sleeping a lot. That’s why I was able to come up here.”

  “What about your ulcer, Beth? The last time you were here . . .”

  I walked out onto her balcony. There were no paintings to look at, just a flourish of pigeon droppings on the stone balustrade. Below us, a fresh Manhattan evening was in progress. An unbroken line of taxis shook in the summer heat, waiting to move east on 44th Street.

  She joined me under the stone archway, carrying one of the paintbrushes and a glass of water. I accepted the glass from her.

  “Beth, how are you feeling?”

  “I came back because I wanted to ask you—I’ve been thinking about what you said the last time I was here, about my success finding homes for the things in his collections. I wish you would tell me why this car means so much to you. It would be—”

  “It’s embarrassing, Beth.”

  “All right. Except, I’m trying to do you a favor. Because he mentioned the car again the other day, and your offer.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes. He brought it up himself. I was thinking—I could suggest that he consider it.”

  Her expression brightened with renewed hope.

  “But I don’t know what other options he’s weighing. For all I know, he may have promised it to someone already. In his will.”

  “I see,” she said, looking resigned.

  “If there’s a chance, then I think it would help if I could show him that your reason is worthy somehow. I couldn’t say anything the other day because I didn’t have anything to tell him. Actually, he doesn’t even know I’ve seen you.”

  On hearing this, her expression flattened. She picked at the handle of the paintbrush, seemingly debating the issue with herself.

  “Fine,” she said at last, “I might as well tell you. I have nothing to lose, have I?”

  I did not see any harm in exaggerating a little: “I don’t know how much longer he’ll be conscious.”

  “Fine,” she said again, still gathering her resolve. “Well. Here it is. The simplest way to explain it, anyway.” She poked at the damp bristles of the brush, stalling. Finally, she began: “Those little paintings of laundry—you saw some of them—”

  She watched my face.

  “They’re the first things I have been able to do in many years.”

  She kept her eyes on me, considering my reaction, but I remained silent. After the hostility Emerson had directed at my own confession, I did not want to discourage her from saying more.

  “It’s been a very long time,” she said. “I took the materials with me when I started this search.”

  “Search? You mean, for the Beacon?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes began to fill but she caught herself and said brusquely, “It was like a switch turned on.”

  “And you could work?”

  “A little. It’s . . . As I get closer to the car . . .”

  It was then that she recounted her trip to Germany and her meeting with Manfred Zeffler at the world headquarters of AG, AG. Riding through the wooded campus on the company’s shuttle bus, she’d passed the display of classic AG models dotting the hills like grazing animals, and at the sight of them, put out to pasture, something shifted in her. She became determined to make something new. It was an artistic impulse she hadn’t felt in years, and as it washed over her, she silently renewed her vow to find the old Beacon.

  “It’s a strange business, making cars,” she said. “Not like any other form of manufacturing. The products are filled with human beings. There’s an intimate association—”

  I mused on this: What is a vehicle but a private capsule? One in which the mundane errands and memorable adventures of a life are accomplished. By some alchemy, through this constant association, a mingling, a transmutation, can occur. In memories alone, a car is capable of encapsulating an entire life. Or more than one. I reflected on Hélène’s situation and wondered: Do you possess a car, or does it possess you?

  It was clear how much she had invested her hopes in finding it.

  “So . . . did you use the Beacon to make your paintings?”

  She looked uncertain as to how to answer. “Yes,” she said finally. “Well, that was one car I used. There were others before that. I have been struggling, but now I am beginning to work on these little ideas. I am superstitious enough to believe that even more might be possible if . . .”

  She didn’t finish her sentence, halted perhaps by the thought of the alternative. Instead, she went on, “Arthur Quint has been so patient, and I give him nothing new. He’s been far more creative than me, reviving old work, trying to organize shows. But it’s been worse, to tell the truth, because now I have a witness to my difficulties.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. I only knew how to save the things other people created. I had never created anything, let alone struggled with the pain of losing that ability. What’s more, I recognized that she had not explained what the car meant to her—only her reason for wanting it. I wondered if this would be enough to persuade Emerson.

  “How did you get the car in the first place?”

  She bit her lip, considering the question. She worked her fingers over the tip of the brush, smoothing it back into a point as she unburdened herself: “There was a man. We met at art school in Florence. They expected us to spend our days in the studios at the academy, or in dead museums, painting like good bourgeois. I came to hate it. I worshiped Duchamp and others who were engaged with ideas and sensations, not antiquity. Then this gentleman and I were in a car, driving very fast, and I began to conceive of painting without paint. It was already several years after the war. So much of the countryside we drove through was still in ruins. My eyes took in scenes I urgently needed to describe. The sensation of speed fascinated me. I always thought I would remember it later, but I found that I didn’t.”

  The trace of a smile appeared on her lips before she frowned it away. “His name was Alto Bianco,” she confided. “It’s bizarre if you know the Italian, because he was—is—a short man, and rather dark. We drove together, so many cars, all kinds. Then one day he made the Beacon appear, as if he had built it himself. He was an Italian boy, Beth. He did not have the slightest interest in British cars. But I had seen one on the road and I could not stop talking about it. I had never felt an attraction to a machine, and it amused him. Driving that car was quite an excitement.”

  “He was an artist?” I asked, unable to recall any work by the man.

  “Oh, Alto’s family took care of him. The truth is, he was a frustrated artist. It wasn’t like it is now, when enough money can buy you a career. He wanted desperately to paint. But he felt he had nothing to say. He saw some of my work and became attached to me, like you would rely on a talisman.” She considered this. “It wasn’t always an honor. He showed up where I lived—a house with other students. He called me a whore for my ‘artistic crimes.’”

  “What crimes?” I asked with alarm.

  She waved the brush in the air as if to dismiss the question. “Because I was wasting myself, he said. Not producing enough, when I could be . . . I told him to stop insulting me. Then he said he loved me because I never talked about my art. He believed he was brilliant, but he could not create anything new. He told me this often—he was putting his bets on me.”

  “You made the Speed Paintings.”

  “Yes. And it wasn’t long before we parted.” She regarded the brush sadly. “Everything we make is a struggle for expression. Do you succeed?”

  “Wher
e is he now?”

  Her lips tightened. “We’re not in touch.”

  With that, I sensed that her testament had reached its end.

  “All right, I’ll tell Emerson,” I promised, already working out how to describe her plight to him.

  “Oh,” she said, looking distressed, “I don’t know if it’s enough.”

  “Is there something else you want me to say?”

  She thought about this before she gave me an answer so precise, so cryptic, I forced myself to memorize it so I could repeat it to Emerson exactly.

  10

  I COULD HEAR EMERSON calling out frantically as I let myself into the loft. I hurried to his room, where Tisa was buzzing around him with a towel.

  “We’re fine, Beth,” he protested when he saw me in the doorway. “Go away. Go back to wherever you’ve been.”

  He was standing at the portable commode, and I could see that he had missed and urinated on the floor. Now his body was drenched in sweat. Tisa dried him and got him resettled in bed while I retrieved the mop and bucket.

  He watched me in silence as I bleached the floor.

  “I was with Hélène Moreau,” I announced flatly. “At her hotel. I’ve been talking with her.”

  I expected him to be furious, and I was prepared to suffer his wrath, if only to get the subject out into the open. There was so little I could do to make anything better for him or to relieve his doubts. To me, the Beacon had no meaning, but I knew it meant something to him and to Hélène, and intentionally or not, I had put myself in the position of their go-between.

  He was sitting calmly in bed, surveying my movements. Tisa tried to take the mop away from me, but I fended her off, happy to have something to focus on while I spoke.